The House: Tribeca Grand

The House: Tribeca Grand

Moving, along with death and taxes, can strike dread in the hearts of many. And with good reason: The detritus of unpacking, like a slow-moving tsunami, washes up on the shoals of countertops and in corners long after the moving trucks rumble off. But wander into the meticulously decorated TriBeCa loft of Vera Wang president Mario Grauso and his partner, Brood designer Serkan Sarier, just days after their arrival and it looks as if every Nymphenburg creature has been artfully nestled in its spot for years.

It's all thanks to Grauso's secret fixer: Big Mike. "He brings like 20 guys and makes it all happen," Grauso says as he surveys the sprawling, sumptuous loft. "And Mike is very big," adds Sarier. Of course, Grauso and Sarier had done enough advance strategy to impress the joint chiefs of staff, including diagramming the floor plan of the three-bedroom apartment and numbering Polaroids of every George Smith sofa and Walton Ford print to a corresponding map. "Well, what do you want us to do at night?" jokes Grauso. "We're either talking about fashion or we're planning the house. I mean, we're anal-retentive."

"It was like Tetris," says Sarier, miming blocks fitting together. "Everything went into place." It's a game they've clearly mastered. The resulting decor is a perfect marriage of tastes, reflecting both the fast-talking Grauso, a native New Yorker known for his power plays in the fashion field, and the charming Sarier, a young designer whose soft-spoken English belies his Turkish-Bosnian-by-way-of-Germany upbringing. The two are a yin and yang of the pragmatic and the exotic.

"You can tell when pieces are Serkan's," says Grauso. "He likes things that are a bit more extreme; I like things to be user-friendly. It's because of me there's a place to sit. Otherwise, you'd be sitting on a weird rock on the floor." Adds Sarier, "We really balance each other." Case in point: a Horst P. Horst print of Coco Chanel from Grauso's extensive photo collection juxtaposed with Sarier's stark image of a leather-clad Leigh Bowery.

While the pair have seamlessly combined their eclectic possessions—including a cabinetful of oceanic curiosities, enough art books to fill the Parsons library, and a suit of Japanese armor—they revel in picking up pieces to stock their new space. "Mario doesn't hold back," says Marjorie Gubelmann, Grauso's shopping partner in crime, who has accompanied him everywhere from Sur la Table to Ted Muehling's boutique. "He is loaded with bags. He's like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman." Much of what he buys will be gifts for friends or family. "He is very generous," says Tory Burch, who in turn gifted them with an antique ivory hand from their mutual favorite shop, De Vera.

It was Sarier, however, who found the apartment, using the Web site StreetEasy. It met all of the couple's requirements: Grauso's that it be more than 3,000 square feet (to accommodate the two busy professionals and their two dogs—a bulldog named Georgia and a pin-thin Italian greyhound named Lily—plus a bedroom suite for Grauso's teenage son, Harry, on his frequent visits home from boarding school), and Sarier's that it get lots of sun. "Because as somber as Mario portrays me, I like literal light," he says with a chuckle.

The fifth-floor aerie is also conveniently located near the Brood studios (a "conspiracy," Grauso teases), which allows more time at home. "We make sure we're a family," says Sarier. "When Harry is here, we spend as much time with him as possible," adds Grauso. "Every night we have dinner." Now a vegan, gluten-free devotee, he maintains his slimmed-down physique by ordering roasted vegetables and salads at Sant Ambreous or Milos. On nights at home, supper is served on Hermès plates at what he's dubbed the "take-out table," a marble round surrounded by toile chairs under a grand crystal chandelier—all transported from the Paris pied-à-terre that Grauso shared with his ex-wife.

That table was instantly put to use: Days after moving in, Grauso and Sarier hosted a dinner party for 12, on the same night as the MTV Movie Awards, at which Emma Watson wore Brood. "I had the computer on my lap waiting for a picture to come up online," Grauso recalls. "Serkan gets so excited—it's fun to watch. It energizes me, because you lose that the longer you're in the business."

"Mario has tapped into many new territories since we've been together," explains Sarier. In fact, he has managed to entice Grauso far afield from his usual New York haunts. "You should see me walking through the East Village," says Grauso, who has even invited boss Vera Wang to dine on East Seventh Street at a new favorite Greek eatery, Pylos. Similarly, Sarier's design for the leather-clad master bed headboard required many trips to a carpenter in Queens. "Serkan made me drive him there six times, and I was like, 'Where are we? What are we doing?' "

"It's changed his whole life," Wang says of Grauso's homemaking endeavor with Sarier. "Mario is extremely lucky to have that energy around him. It's experience paired with young energy. The two things together are kind of fabulous."